


Quattuor Verbi, Tres Verbi

by NorroenDyrd



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Child Neglect, Childhood Memories, Couch Cuddles, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Memories, POV Alternating, POV First Person, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Post-Here Lies the Abyss, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 16:45:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8109961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: Crushed by the news that the Inquisition's efforts were not enough to rescue Clan Lavellan (including her mother), the Inquisitor keeps uttering four very sad, pain-filled words - which her unlikely best friend and lover, Gereon Alexius, counters with three words of his own, which he has been meaning to say to her for quite some while.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was initially part of my Alexius/Lavellan series, but now I am removing it from there because I need to rewrite parts of it with a new development in mind: Felix is actually alive, having met and befriended Warden Commander Amell and her husband Zevran and undergone the Joining, and will join the Inquisition after the battle of Adamant.

Down there, in the courtyard, they are still celebrating. I can hear a faint buzzing noise throbbing against the window panes: voices and laughter and music, all blended together into one vague blob - sort of like when I tried experimenting with the colours during a painting lesson with Solas, and then ended up making a murky, brownish-grey spot on my palette.  
  
They must be so happy, and hopeful, and eager for another day, another victory of the great Inquisition's forces. Only a short while ago, I was happy too. So happy.  
  
I was so proud of having defeated a powerful demon and set the tormented minds of my companions at ease. So proud of having stopped the poor, noble-hearted Wardens, trapped and blinded by their own desire to save all of Thedas, from becoming Corypheus' army of possessed minions. And most importantly, so proud of having welcomed the survivors of that horrible slaughter at Adamant into our big and loving (if at times bizarre) Inquisition family.  
  
And, of course, I was also filled with so much glee at seeing Leliana meet her best friend again, even if for a brief moment, before she took off with her faithful elven companion to keep searching for a cure for the Calling - and at witnessing the arrival of another, no less faithful, elven companion arrive at the Keep, to be reunited with Hawke and Varric.  
  
Strange - all these feelings thrived and shone in my heart so recently, and beyond my quarters' walls, the festivities are still in full swing, and some people are just as happy and proud and gleeful as I used to be... And yet, right now these shining colours have all blended, just like the sounds have blended, turning into nothing but a murky stain somewhere in the far corner of my chest. And it seems to me so utterly, painfully impossible that I will ever feel happy again.  
  
I don't even remember why I rushed up here... To fetch something that someone downstairs asked me a question about, maybe? It is all so obscure now, like a passage in a book that I borrowed from someone and then had to return, so I can no longer look it up... Because that someone, a different, joyful someone, is now worlds away from me, forever out of reach.  
  
It doesn't matter too much anyway... All that matters is that as I burst into my room, my heart still dancing to the rhythm of Maryden's music, I noticed a letter lying on my desk, and suddenly recalled how a scout (one of Cullen's men, I believe) had delivered it to me, with his face all serious and drawn into a frown, and said it needed my urgent attention... And then I had had to toss that letter aside and run off, because, hardly had I slid one of those dainty little letter openers along the flap of the envelope, when Cassandra had come hammering on my door, with the news that all was ready for the march on Adamant, and I had to come down to the war room immediately... And so, this supposedly urgent message had been lying forgotten amid all the other pesky paperwork that I had to see to (all the time!), while I was off cleaving through scores of demons and dispelling nightmares and whimpering in admiration at the rousing speech of the amazing Warden Blackwall.  
  
I picked it up only moments ago, out of idle curiosity more than anything else - and its very first lines seem to have woven into a huge inky fist, delivering a powerful punch right into the middle of my stomach, making me fold in two like a stuffed toy with no inner wiring to keep it upright. I think I might have sunk to the floor, my legs bent in the knee and my forehead resting on the prickly rug - at least, that is what the feelings in my bones and my skin are telling me... But for all I know, I could be sitting or lying in a completely different pose: all of my senses have been mashed into the same blob-like mess as the sounds in the courtyard. The only thing that is clear and definite and poignant is the shattering ache in my chest.  
  
They are gone. My clan, my family - my other, first family, which I thought I'd return to after all of this is over, if only just to say hello and set out on a new adventure, like the Heroine of Ferelden did... They are all gone - either dead or fleeing, chased away by an angry human mob, which Cullen's soldiers have not been able to hold back.  
  
And my Mamae... Oh, my poor Mamae... As the Keeper tells me in this letter, her writing slanting and hasty and blurred with dried-up tear splatters in places - my Mamae has been struck down as she was defending her clan mates from the screaming, enraged humans, who accused them of spreading some sort of plague.  
  
She is gravely wounded, the Keeper continues, and it will take powerful healing magic to get her back on her feet. Gravely wounded. My Mamae - gravely wounded, struggling for her life, while I am here, celebrating, having fun with my new friends, feeling happy for some reason.  
  
It has always been this way. Ever since I was little, I have been nothing but a hindrance. An accident that went too far, because a lot of babies in the clan had died during the cold season, and the Keeper pleaded with my Mamae to let me be born, until she gave in - reluctantly. Very reluctantly.  
  
More than once, I have persistently tailed Madame Vivienne, asking her to make one of those herbal remedies to pass on to a female soldier or scout I overheard talking about how scared she was that a dalliance in the barracks might leave her with a child she could not provide for - not now, not when there is so much fighting to be done, and so few things in the world make sense. More than once, I have encouraged Cole to settle the doubts of a young girl that wanted to do what she felt was the only way out, but was too afraid that the Chantry sisters would scorn her for being a sinner. Because no baby deserves the guilt and the pain of being brought into this world if it is unwanted.  
  
And it has been painful. Very, very painful. Being reminded, whenever Mamae got angry with me (and that happened far too often, because sometimes... no, more like a lot of times, I can't keep myself from getting up to the silliest, most annoying antics), that I was not supposed to be born. Being pushed away, no matter how much affection I tried to share, in my own, fumbling way, by fashioning Mamae gifts with what I thought were superb craftsmanship skills, and stumbling in her wake when she was going about her business around camp, preparing for the hunt, with my open arms yearning for a hug and my widened eyes searching desperately for any slightest, most remote hint at affection. Being cared for by everyone, anyone in the clan, except for the one person who I wanted to care the most. Being doubly punished for every misdeed - first, for actually doing it; and then, for 'pretending' to 'wring out pity'... because I was weaker, and less resilient, than my brave, fierce warrior Mamae, and could never convince her that it really did hurt when she hit me, and that all my little whimpers were genuine. And lastly, being worn out every night by my own burning tears, which just kept running on and own down my cheeks, because I felt that I was doing something wrong but had no idea how to fix it.  
  
There were many other things I did that were considered wrong - like petting the statue of the Dread Wolf, or interrupting the elders with countless 'Why?' questions, or straying too far from the hunting trail to chase after a colourful butterfly.. But most of them could easily be fixed (whether or not I did fix them is kind of another matter). As for being born... How do you fix something like being born - especially many years afterwards? Especially when you are too fascinated by discovering the world around you, by probing every nook and cranny of the forest for secrets and treasures (like a rock shaped like the head of a halla, or a mossy old stump sheltering pink baby hedgehogs, or an exceptionally tall tree that will be happy to show you a breathtaking view if you are both brave enough to climb to its top and gentle enough not to break any branches), and by meeting all sorts of amazing new people, from dwarven caravaneers to human lumberjacks to elven milkmaids who are still beautiful without any vallaslin? When you are too much in a hurry to be alive to stop and fall on your own dagger?  
  
Since I could not fix the terrible wrong that I had done my Mamae when I came into her life, I eventually decided to pour all my strength into proving to her that my birth had not been entirely wasteful. This is why (or at least, part of the reason why) I am always so stubbornly friendly towards everyone I meet: as I try to make their lives better, even in tiny, barely significant ways like saying a few kind words now and again, or giving them a smile and a hug when they are feeling lonely, I secretly hope that these people will remember me, and the way I brightened their day, and then say afterwards, 'Things would have been worse if she wasn't around!'.  
  
And it seemed to me, before now, that being Inquisitor would help me earn these words more often, and for more important reasons, than I ever could on my own, as a simple huntress from a wandering elven clan. There has been so much joy in saving villagers from demons, and in bringing my friends from the inner circle closer together and standing by them when they confront the shadows of their past - and, of course, in helping a very special someone redeem himself when most people thought he was beyond salvation. Of course, part of that joy comes simply from the fact that I relish seeing other people smile (especially if it is one of Gereon's smiles, which often turn out sort of surprised, as if he is saying, 'I didn't know my lips could do that!'... I find it so adorable that I can hardly keep from making delighted squeaky noises). But the other part, the important part, has to do with this uplifting thought, the one that all of this work to steer lives from darkness to light has given me. The thought that something good did come out of my birth.  
  
But... But did it? Did it really? For all my high-and-mighty Inquisitorness, I have not managed to keep my clan, or my Mamae, from harm. She must resent me so much now, as she braves her way through the agony of her wound - and if, Creators forbid, she does not make it, it will all be my fault.  
  
Suddenly, with a crushing force that almost splits my skull from the inside, the words of the Nightmare come back to me, and I am stuck repeating their inner meaning to myself, over and over again, my insides clenching and my eyelids glued together with a dense film of tears.  
  
_You mother was right, little girl. As was your lover._  
  
That was what the demon said to me, its echoing voice wrapping round my throat like a silken ribbon. My companions never asked me to explain what that taunt was all about, and even I myself soon stopped focusing on it, as I had much more important business to attend to - like following that mysterious spirit that tried so hard to help us under the guise of Divine Justinia. But now these words ring through my mind with renewed clarity, and after them, comes this chant of mine - an echo of what Gereon said to me in Redcliffe.  
  
I don't know if he ever truly meant it - as that, in essence, has always been Corypheus' attitude towards me, not his. It could have just been something he was repeating after his master; especially since at the time, my poor vhenan was too consumed by watching his son slip away from him to really care about anything else, even about hating the enemy of his order's god. But even if he did mean it, at least in part, I have long since forgiven him for saying that, most sincerely reassuring him after each of his apologies.  
  
I have forgiven my Mamae, too - how could I not? But for her, these words have always been far, far more personal than for ma vhenan, and she most definitely meant every single one of them, every time she hurled them into my face. And if she thinks of me now, she probably means it more than ever. That is why the demon hinted at it; that is why it hurts so much.  
  
I am a mistake. A mistake that cannot be fixed - as every time when someone tried to prevent my birth (be it Gereon acting upon Corypheus' orders, or my Mamae striving to live her life the way she and not the Keeper wanted it) it lead to nothing.  
  
I am a mistake. And even though I tried to make living with the consequences of this mistake more tolerable for the people around me, by being good and kind and helpful, all my efforts, as the letter has shown, have been little more than a miserable failure.  
  
I am a mistake. A mistake that my clan, and my Mamae, has now paid dearly for.  
  
I am a mistake. I should never have existed.  
  
***  
  
Down there, in the courtyard, they are still celebrating. I can hear the tide of voices heaving behind my back, gradually ebbing away, as I make my way up those endless flights of stairs and into the Inquisitor's quarters. She raced up there to fetch something, and has not come out since. As the minutes of waiting for her to rejoin the crowd of revellers sluggishly crawled by, I began to feel uneasy, and failed to fight back a compulsion to check if all is well with her.  
  
Of course, I chide myself, as I am prone to doing, while one wooden step after another creaks underneath my feet. This over-protectiveness is probably completely uncalled for; she must have become distracted by something, or maybe even decided to take a little rest, after all the gruelling battles, physical and mental, that she has been through. Heaven forbid me to turn into one of those exaggeratedly vigilant old men from the Orlesian masked comedies Felix used to take me to when I came to visit - the kind that breathe down the necks of their young lovers, wanting to control their every move!  
  
I take back that last fervent inner exclamation the moment I step through the door - which Yavanna has left slightly ajar. It would have been far, far better if I was just being paranoid.  
  
I find her sitting on the floor, bending down so low that her face is resting on her knees and her hands are clawing at the carpet. Next to her, I see a sliver of paper, most likely a letter that has slipped out of her grasp; in the dim light, it looks greyish, like a flake of cold ash; and somehow, the mental image only intensifies that sickening feeling that reared its hideous head within me as soon as my eyes fell on Yavanna's figure, so small and helpless in the middle of this vast chamber.  
  
I hurry to turn away from this little slip of grey, not wanting to pry into any of her private correspondence, but a few words still get imprinted in my memory. The letters appear somewhat blurred - perhaps due to my deteriorating eyesight, or because the ashen missive has been repeatedly wept over; but regardless of that, I am able to see what they are spelling out. And what little I discern is enough to make me feel as if my stomach has been ruptured by a shard of ice (which has actually almost happened to me, more than once; but this time, the agony seems to be stronger than in any instance of me being physically wounded).  
  
_Dead. Wounded. Did not... on time... Your mother..._  
  
This much suffices, more than amply, for me to know. To understand what she must be feeling. To regret, with all my heart, that she has to suffer the way I did.  
  
Yavanna... My merciful judge, my unlikely friend... Amata mea; vita mea... I am sorry. For I have been there - lost in the same darkness, crushed by the same pain. I know what it is like: when one moment, you are feeling happy and content, proud of the life you've built and certain that nothing will ever go wrong - and the next, you are already tumbling down into nothingness, with the ground snatched away from under your feet and replaced by a gaping black crack; because the people you cared so fervently for have been taken away from you. Claimed by death and sickness at a time when you were not even there to save them.  
  
I know what it is like - and I also know that, at least for a time, no words of consolation will be able to close that crack... But then, there are some things that may replace the words - little things, insignificant at first glance, but ultimately serving to heal a heart that has been shattered. This is the lesson that I learned from my friendly nemesis.  
  
Gently, as I used to aid Felix when, on good days, he found himself capable of getting out of bed and walking around the room, I take Yavanna's hands in mine, having lowered myself by her side. After lingering for a moment in this pose, in order to allow the warmth of my touch to alert her to my presence, I pull her to her feet, and steer her towards the bed.  
  
It takes just a little bit of telekinetic magic to lift the covers and shape them into a warm, multilayered cocoon, with the quiet, shivering little elf wrapped in its core. Surveying the fruit of my labours with some satisfaction (if Yavanna was in her usual mood, she would have chuckled and said that smug spellcasting must be a Tevinter thing), I walk to the other side of the room. I could have sworn there was a tea set in one of those cupboards - a present, was it not, from some eccentric Orlesian noble who once visited Skyhold at the Ambassador's behest? I remember the grand tale of his visit - not the concrete details, because at the time when Yavanna shared it with me, I was still far too distracted by the shadows that plagued me; but the way the story was being told, and that radiant smile on my dear friend's face... I can only hope that I will see this smile again.  
  
Once more, it requires merely a couple of very simple spells - a cone of ice to be melted into pure water, and some mage fire to heat this water without setting the room ablaze - to get the age-old remedy ready. It is not a widely known fact (not surprisingly, given my reputation), but my tea-brewing skills have actually proved quite useful in some cases... The most notable being the night when I persistently strove to awaken a certain desperate, abandoned, inebriated boy I found in a Minrathous brothel.  
  
Soon enough, the hot wave of herbal fragrance rises from the (somewhat excessively) adorned porcelain, and with a steady motion of my hand, I guide the tray with the tea set back across the room to Yavanna's bed, calculating the spell precisely so that one of the cups slides right into her stiff, frozen fingers. Then, I follow the tea set's path myself and, after setting the tray down onto the bed and taking the other cup, sit by Yavanna's side.  
  
'You needn't say anything if you do not wish to talk,' I tell her, giving her an encouraging nod as she takes a first, hesitant sip of tea. 'I just wanted to tell you that...'  
  
She turns to look at me, her eyes sunken and full of sorrow. Her gaze drives a new wounding shard through my flesh - this time, drawing blood from my very heart. And I realize that this time, I will have to say it. I will have to get the words out.  
  
When Felix and Livia were alive, these words used to come to me with the natural ease of breathing. I punctuated the conversation with them as a casual everyday greeting and as a way of saying goodbye or wishing goodnight; I inserted them at random into letters I wrote home from Minrathous when the Magisterium business took me away from my family; and I brought them up at any other moment when I had a chance - sometimes so frequently that my pointedly serious, determined-to-be-a-grown-up teenage son would look up at me from his books in scathing disapproval... Which I would promptly counter by repeating the words again - this inevitably made him dive back into his sea of revision, his ears flaring.  
  
The words followed my family everywhere they went, as an ever-present token of my protection... Up until the day when there was no protection to be given, because I was not by their side to shield them from harm. And on that day, the words became twisted - tainted with the darkness of my memories, and the crippling fear that some day, the faded ghosts of my past might become real again.  
  
In all of the time that I knew her; even after all the precious moments we shared, bonding closer and closer till both of us forgot that we used to be deadly foes; even after I coughed out my disaster of a confession in Cole's corner of the tavern attic; even after so many kisses, some scorching and passionate, some sweetly chaste, and so many nights in each other's arms, sometimes in search of quenching our desire, and sometimes in search of a comforting touch... even after all of this, I still have not said these words to Yavanna. I have tried to, more than once - but have invariably become stupidly, infuriatingly tongue-tied before I could even take a deep enough breath to sustain my own voice.  
  
Every time I have sensed those words form inside my head, ready to escape my lips if I only let them, I have always remembered what my life was like when I squandered them so freely; when - like a gambler that lives off his winnings, not bothering to stop and think about the future - I was so generous with my affection, so confident that my wife and son would always be there to hear these warm words of mine, or read them in my letters... And this memory has always been followed by the thought of how that life ended. And how, at any moment, without warning, without mercy, it might end again.  
  
She walks along a razor's edge, my Yavanna. With a spring in her step and a song on her lips - but still along a razor's edge. By one incredibly fortunate twist of fate after another, she has so far emerged unscathed from the cruelest, bloodiest of battles - but I am too old to put too much trust in good fortune... as I once used to. Fate has a way of changing, as I well know - and there is something inside me, some primal, superstitious instinct, which keeps whispering to me that if I repeat the words I used to say to Livia and Felix, I will somehow invoke their fate upon Yavanna. It is a foolish notion, completely groundless, and my mind commands me, over and over, to reject it... But it seems that the brain of a scholar is not as strong as the heart of a husband and father who once lost everything.  
  
But tonight, the heart will have to obey. Tonight, the fear will have to be fought back. Because Yavanna is grieving - and to cope with her grief, she needs reassurance. A token. A sign that she is not alone - that she is being cherished and protected.  
  
'I love you,' I say, a bit taken aback by how hoarse and croaking my voice comes out.  
  
Holding her close to me, I can feel her shoulders twitch. She looks up at me, and as her eyes meet mine, I repeat, with more composure this time,  
  
'I love you. And I am sorry I did not say it out loud until this moment. I... I just could not drum up the courage, pathetic as it sounds. But now... I could not keep silent. It seemed to me that you might be in need of a reminder that... Well, that you are loved'.  
  
'I... I did need it...' she says weakly, her empty cup rolling off her knees and across the floor as she nestles her head on my shoulder. 'More than you know'.  
  
With a flick of my wrist, I levitate my cup and the remaining tea paraphernalia out of the way, leaving enough room for me to wrap my arms around Yavanna.  
  
'When you are ready to talk, I shall listen. Like you listened to me'.  
  
'Thank... Thank you, Gereon... I... I think I just want to sit like this for a while... And...'  
  
She moves about in her blanket cocoon, gradually beginning to relax. I shoot a cautious, unobtrusive glance at her face, and am profoundly relieved to find that her eyes are no longer empty and dim. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that... That a fleeting reflection of her familiar smile returns as she speaks  - accompanied by a look of surprise, as if she was not expecting herself to be capable of smiling again… That, too, is familiar.  
  
'I love you too, Gereon. I love you too'.


End file.
